iPhone 5 Battery Life May Be Impacted Greatly by Cellular Signal Strength

Deep in its lengthy review of the iPhone 5, iLounge has performed an analysis on the battery life of the iPhone 5. The site tested the device under a number of conditions, including both cellular and Wi-Fi web browsing, voice calls, FaceTime calls, video recording, and video and audio playback.

The phone performed fairly well but iLounge found battery life struggled when transferring cellular data or making voice calls, which they speculated was due to a weak signal:

Quote:

if you're using your iPhone 5 in places a with a very strong (4- to 5-bar) LTE or 3G signal, your cellular battery life may approach that number, but if not, the cellular antenna will struggle to maintain a signal, and fall well short. Because LTE and 3G/4G towers are in a state of build-out flux right now, our tests suggest that many LTE users won't come close to Apple's promised numbers.

iLounge has the detailed results on its battery testing in its iPhone 5 review, but unsurprisingly, mileage will vary greatly depending on a number of factors including health of the battery, signal strength, screen brightness, and other considerations.

ALL Cellphones, even dumbphones are affected by signal strength, the weaker the signal, the phone has to boost power to the radio to maintain a connection.

Turn on Airplane mode on pretty much any dumb or smart phone, you'd be amazed how long the battery lasts without having to power the radio, I did that with my old Samsung Replenish Android Phone after I got my S3, I think with airplane mode on, it lasted almost a week before it died, my old 3GS would go almost a week to.

Little over 4 hours seems pretty poor, but obviously you'd have to compare it to other devices. Maybe WiMax takes less power or something because there's no way I could kill my phone in 4 hours, even HBO 4g streaming I watched 3 hours and still had 40% one time.

This is my first iPhone, and I'm really satisfied with my battery life. Albeit I'm on WiFi most of the time, I managed 12 hours on and off. LTE somewhat degrades my battery life, but it is by no means bad. Props to Apple.

Of course. The signal is displayed as weak when you are relatively far from the base station or subject to shadowing. At the same time, your cell phone has to transmit more power to upload any information, which leads to lower battery life.

I've been exactly opposite. I switched from an iPhone 4 and with my use I was getting around 8 hours. Been approaching upwards of 15 with the iPhone 5. I do stream music and video via Airplay for around 50% of my daily use.

Is anyone surprised here? I've seen dramatic differences in battery life correlating to cell signal since I got my iPhone 3G in '08. For that matter, cell radios working harder significantly reduced batteries in old basic Nokia phones 15 years ago. Something about mountains being made of molehills comes to
mind.

Even my Razr Maxx will peter out around lunch time because our signal strength is absolutely atrocious at work (constantly waffles between 0 and 1 bar). Phones boost power whenever signal strength is poor. Nothing new here.

My battery life on my iPhone 5 has been incredibly poor. I even turned LTE off yesterday and fully charged it overnight, and I'm halfway through my work day and down to 47%. I have only done texting and Facebook messenger.

That's weird. Doesn't iPhone switch to cellular data when locked, regardless if Wi-Fi is enabled (when all background tasks are complete that is)?

The example I'm giving is when I am on cellular data (not on a WiFi network). At lunch, in a so-so coverage area, I lost 15% in an hour. It was locked in my pocket. At home, overnight, I lose about 3%.